


pressed, distressed, digressed

by RokettoMusashi



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: During Canon, Gen, Sickfic, set during dp146
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RokettoMusashi/pseuds/RokettoMusashi
Summary: “Let me do your makeup,” she’d said, her hands shaking.“I can do my own makeup, dear,” James told her.“It’s my makeup,” Jessie protested. “You’re just wearing it.”[a small little 'what you didn't see' from 'Dressed For Jess Success!']
Relationships: Kojirou | James & Musashi | Jessie, Kojirou | James & Musashi | Jessie & Rocket-dan Nyarth | Team Rocket Meowth
Comments: 20
Kudos: 95





	pressed, distressed, digressed

**Author's Note:**

> amazon prime had diamond and pearl on there and my dad has a sub he lets me use even tho i'm a commie who hates amazon so i went to watch dp146 cause i do that when i'm sick but it was like day 1 of this cold and i was like eh dp146 is more of a day 2 activity and then i went to find it the next day and it was GONE like i couldnt find a free version it wanted me to pay even tho i had prime so i tore back into my browser history to find the page i viewed previously and had to watch it like that but somehow it worked the episode was just unlisted or some shit
> 
> anyways fuck jeff bezos

“It is _not_ a foolproof plan! Even if I do fit the frills, I hardly have that magenta mane of yours to match!”

“I know there’s a brain in there somewhere, James, one that’s heard of wearing a wig before.”

James pressed his gloved palms directly against his eyes, letting out a half-agonized moan as he did so. Even with his vision obscured, he could feel Jessie’s searing blues on him like two tiny suns, waiting for another quip to shoot down. Despite her current state, her unrelenting spirit remained, a fact James constantly found both admirable and frustrating.

He dragged his hands down his face pathetically, staring up at the ceiling as he spoke.

“You’re really asking me to play the part of _you_ for a whole contest?” he said. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, dearest, but _you’re_ the starlet in this partnership.”

“And behind every starlet is an understudy backstage,” Jessie said, her wit sharp as ever. James turned to Meowth, his eyes pleading, and was nervous to see the cat lost in thought.

“Why do you look genuinely contemplative right now?”

“I’m just t’inkin’—”

“—hence my worry—”

“—maybe she’s right—”

“She’s _delirious!_ ”

“She’s also standing right here!” Jessie seethed. “I’m _sick_ , not braindead!”

The second to last breath of the outburst caught in her throat, sending her into a round of nasty, crackling coughs that had been sounding worse as the morning progressed. The boys shot up nervously, inching closer to her side with worried hands hovering to catch her if need be.

Jessie gave herself a moment’s respite, punctuating the fit with a damp and unproductive sniffle as she opened her eyes and stared the other two down.

“Either you go or I do,” she threatened.

“Jessie, that’s ridiculous, you know as well as I you’re in no condition to—”

Before he could finish the sentence, Meowth jumped up and yanked him to the side, the two of them flipping around to form some sort of makeshift wall, their backs to their third. Jessie narrowed her eyes, blearily peering over the veil, and Meowth kept his voice at a whisper.

“Hey, you comin’ down sick too, Jimmy?” he said. “Ya know if ya challenge her like dat she’s gonna find a way t’ make ya eat dose woihds!”

James considered this, recalling a few hundred choice memories of this nature. Of all the times Jessie _did_ keep digging a pitfall despite being horribly ill, of all the times he carried her back to a cabin or a cave that offered some form of respite from the elements, of a single moment several years back where she took a Stun Spore to the face and threatened her attacker until it gave her two more deadly blights. Meowth had a point.

“Look, I don’t wanna do dis eit’ah,” he said. “But contests is important t’ Jess, an’ if we don’t take one for da team she’s gonna jump out a window while we ain’t lookin’.”

Soon as he said it, the both of them froze. Reluctantly, they whipped their heads around anxiously to make sure their teammate was still present. 

Jessie was there—miraculously—looming over their conspiratory forms with her arms crossed and her faded cherry lips in a childish pout. 

“Jessie,” James sighed, like he so often did. “If we do this for you, can you at _least_ promise to spend the day resting?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a baby. If by resting you mean glued to the TV, then yes, I’ll be positively _soporific_.”

He looked to Meowth, and the cat shot him a look that said _that’s the best we’re going to get._ Sighing once more, James rose to his feet.

The clock hung ominously against the wall as it counted down the hours until the contest began. Time seemed to move at an ephemeral pace as the lot of them prepared, Jessie shouting raspy and half-coherent orders from the tyrannical throne of blankets and pillows she’d cocooned herself within.

“Let me do your makeup,” she’d said, her hands shaking.

“I can do my own makeup, dear,” James told her.

“It’s _my_ makeup,” Jessie protested. “You’re just _wearing_ it.”

They’d finished with an hour to spare, and James listlessly stared at their handiwork in the cabinet mirror, trying not to obsess over the cracks across his veneer. He wasn’t filled out enough to do the dress any justice, and no amount of modification seemed to help. The frills hung loose at his waist, the sleeves didn’t reach far enough, the boots were a size too small. Suffering through wearing the outfit was agonizing enough, the thought of performing in it was unheard of. 

He hadn’t noticed that Jessie had crawled out of bed again, too caught up in his own insecurities to see her feverishly attempting to shove a few flyaway hairs back into his wig, like a doting mother who’d been blindfolded. He turned to better face her, his hangups with his own situation seeming to secede as he took in her worsening state. Worry flowered in his heart, her fingers hot against his skin.

Softly, he pressed his hand against her forehead, trying not to recoil at the heat. She let out a quiet noise of distress as James did so, but hadn’t the strength to protest, much.

“You’re really warm, Jess,” he noted.

“Don’t care,” she muttered, still fiddling with his fringe. “My ribbon…”

She looked as though she could barely keep her eyes open, her whole face heavy with the weight of the congestion dragging down her voice. James liked to think himself a man capable of standing up for his own desires when it really came down to it, but he was undeniably weak to the whims of his partner. She took ill often and bounced back quickly, but not before the bug absolutely dragged her through the wringer in its short time there. When she’d suddenly started sniffling like a newborn cubchoo a day or two prior, James had bit his tongue and wished upon every pretty little star he’d seen that she’d have recovered by the time they got to Lilypad town. Between the brat’s piplup and the sharpedo chasing them through the frigid waters of Sinnoh, her condition only got worse.

And here they were, now—with James sure he was about to make a fool of himself in front of half the region, growing increasingly weaker in the face of his sick friend. Her delirious handiwork wasn’t doing much to fix his appearance, even less so when her feet tangled and she stumbled forward, messily landing in her partner’s arms. He squeaked out a nervous exclamation of her name, holding her aloft with worry creasing his brow.

“Enough,” he said, uncharacteristically firm. “Back in bed, come now.”

Once more, she looked up at him, fever-glazed eyes faded and light, her chipping nail polish clutching at the cream-coloured frills against his chest.

“My ribbon—” she said, pleading.

“I’ll be home with it in two shakes of a mareep’s tail, Jess.”

Gingerly, he walked her back over to the futon, lowering her back into its protective grace and pulling the covers up over her chin. Jessie shifted a little, weakly massaging circles under her eyes in an attempt to lessen the ache throbbing tightly against her face. 

Meowth was back in through the door, then, a bag of miscellaneous supplies thrown messily over his tiny shoulder. He stopped, for a moment, taking a good look at James and trying not to laugh.

“Not a word,” James glared daggers.

“Hey, Jimmy, remind me, when’s da last time you ‘n’ I pulled a good old fashioned train heist?”

“A—” the question caught him off guard, and he combed his mental index. “...that’s a good question, have we ever? More importantly, why?”

“I dunno, ‘cause ya sure look like a Jessie James to me— _ow!_ ”

The force of James’s palm against Meowth’s back sent the cat forward, the groceries in his paws sliding across the floor. Wordlessly, James grabbed the ice and started tying off a generous amount into a pack. Meowth peered over his shoulder, his tone softening when he saw their third.

“How’s our goihl doin’?”

“No better than before,” James sighed, his hands moving rhythmically. “I regret to say I think I liked it better when she had the energy to bite back.”

With that, he laid the ice pack against Jessie’s blazing forehead, tracing his manicure through her mussed up curls as she shivered fiercely in response. 

“We oughta get goin’,” Meowth nudged James, and the two of them cast a reluctant look back to Jessie. Seeming to sense their eyes on her, she opened her own bleary blues to take them in.

“Promise me you’ll win this,” she said, voice languid and deep. “If I’m to stay cooped up all day, you’re to succeed.”

James bit back a resigned sigh, found compassion instead. “Of course, Jessie. That’s only fair.”

There was a reluctance blooming in his heart to leave her, one he couldn’t justify with performance anxiety alone. Tenderly as he could muster, he unbagged the other supplies so that they were within her reach—lotiony tissues, cherry lozenges, a pint of her favourite ice cream hidden away in the fridge. She pulled the covers back up over her face, trying to hide the blush definitely forming on her cheeks. _It’s the fever,_ she would’ve said if James asked, but he knew what it truly meant—the flattery at being worried for, looked after, cared about.

“Anyt’in’ else we can leave ya wit’ before we hit da stage, Jess?”

She lethargically threw an arm over her eyes, blocking out the cabin light as it burnt into her bursting head. “The cure for the common cold presented to my hands in the ribbon cup itself.”

“I can’t tell if your sense of humour got worse or your delirium got better,” James grinned.

“Either way, take note,” Jessie said. “And get lost. Top Coordinators don’t arrive late.”

“Yes, dear,” he relented, casting himself one more glance in the nearby mirror as he stood. From a distance, the inconsistencies he’d fretted over mere moments ago weren’t so bad. Perhaps… _perhaps_ this goal was achievable.

“James?”

He looked back to his partner, something he couldn’t entirely identify in her eyes. Even as she was—red-nosed and cloudy-eyed—he felt her beauty entirely outshone any attempt he made at copying it.

For the first time all day, she smiled herself.

“Knock them _dead,_ darling.”

  
  


He did.

**Author's Note:**

> i can't even make a funny comment like 'i was sick so i wrote sickfic' because we all damn well know i write it when i'm healthy too
> 
> fic brought to you by walmart brand dayquil
> 
> musashi @ tumblr for sickfic prompts


End file.
